Cattle Baron's Ball, The American Cancer Society, and Jim's personal new fight with Cancer

This Podcast covers the Central Texas Cattle Baron's Ball along with the need to raise money to fight Cancer with the American Cancer Society. Jim also opens up for the first time publicly about his own Cancer journey.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Everybody at Zach and Jim. We'reback with our podcast again. If you've
missed any of our podcast you canfind them at our website. Go to
Waco one hundred dot com. Yeah, just click on the Zach and Jim
page. We call it off Airwith Jim and Zach. Stories and memories
we could share without getting in awhole lot of trouble. Yeah, stuff
we couldn't have told on the radio. We can't things we can't say on

(00:22):
the radio, But today we can'ttell it on the radio, We're gonna
tell you on the podcast. It'sthat time of the year. One of
our favorite events is coming up.One that's been around for just about as
long as Zach and Jim have beenon the radio here, and that is
Cattle Baron's Ball. We've said manymany times over the years. It is
our favorite event and of course itall benefits the American Cancer Society. This

(00:44):
year, it's gonna be on Saturday, August nineteenth, inside the Extra Co
Events Center, and Jim Hawai isthat important. It's inside well, because
it's hot outside condition that's one ofthe big things. Yeah, great lineup.
We got the frontmen of country musicgoing to be there. These are
three guys that were lead singers forother big popular bands. Over thirty number
one hit songs. They'll perform thoseon stage and it's for an incredible calls.

(01:10):
And that's why we've invited how Whitaker. We've known him for many,
many yet years. How we've knownhim as the CPA of the stars.
But you're doing something different, aren'tyou driving a truck or something? Corgating
boxes? Yeah? Okay, soyeah, quite quite different, he said,
almost twenty years of doing that.That's great. You see him,
Jim going around town, dig itthrough the dumpsters back behind the building,

(01:33):
getting those old boxes out. Man, it's the way Louis started and he
taught me. Well, but ifanybody knows anything about cattle barons, how
it's you. You and your wifehave been very involved from its inception.
What was the first year that youcan remember you got involved with cattle barons,
Well, the first year was nineteenninety three. Megoats and Missy Louder

(01:53):
chaired that year. Wow, andwe really had no idea what we were
doing. Uh, extremely no ideawhat we were doing, but we we
jumped in and helped and we said, look if we could just break even.
We do great. Uh by nineo'clock that night and we had already

(02:15):
increased the beer capacity three times thatweek. It takes whatever it takes.
The first event was out at whatis now Highlander Farms, and I believe
if I'm not mistaken, and I'llpull her name again, UM, I'll
come back to performed one of JimHowler's favorites. I can tell you.

(02:37):
Oh it was Patty. Thank youvery much, Thank you very much,
performed. UM. Back to thebeer story, right, ran out of
beer. So Malcolm Duncan and RussellTrippett and I went down to a little
convenience store at the corner of LakeShore Drive and UM and uh North and

(02:59):
eighteen walked in when anybody in thereand I walked in. I put an
American Express down on the counter andkeep up with the beer we take out
because we're gonna empty out your deal. He said you can't do that,
and I said, I'll leave youa couple of cases of pearl Okay.
We took it back and by thetime the night was over all the bear
had been had had been drunk.Yeah, and uh, you know,

(03:23):
guys, we made one hundred thousanddollars on that and nobody. So it
was incredible, and so it's continuedon year after year. Each year a
cattle Baron's Ball, a new theme, new directors and so forth. But
what's the most important about it,how is the American Cancer Society. And
the whole reason that we do cattleBaron's Ball is to raise money to help

(03:45):
fight cancer. It's exactly right.Help may raise money for research and for
help those caregivers and patients and familiesthat are going through it. You know,
everybody, I don't care who youare, you've been touched by somebody
you know, somebody that has cancer. Whether it's a family member, it's
you yourself, somebody from church,somebody from your work, somebody from school.

(04:08):
You know it. So it's veryimportant and it should be very important
to support not only cattle Baron's Ball, but the American Cancer Society. And
how you know, you yourself personallyhave had cancer battles since the eighties,
correct, I mean talk a littlebit about your struggles. Well, first

(04:28):
of all, what I'd like tosay if any of you haven't seen the
speech on ESPN special, it's adocumentary about Jim Valvan how it led up
to his speech, and it's aboutthirty or forty five minutes. Yes,
you can catch it on demand,or you can catch it on ESPN or

(04:50):
ESPN plus. I would highly encourageyou. It is it is not sad.
It is motivating. And one ofthe things he said in that speech
is he said, there's three thingsyou ought to do every day. Y
oughta you ought to think, yougotta spend some time, and thought you

(05:13):
ought to laugh and belly laugh,laugh hard. And your emotions ought to
be touched to tears could be happytears, could be sad tears. But
those those things are important, ashe says, if you can do that
every single day, you got afull day and you're gonna have a good

(05:34):
day. And so I encourage youto watch that if you can. I've
tried since I saw that very firstspeech to a little bit. Take that
into account. You know, hisfamous line is don't give up, don't
ever give up. And that's kindof the way we've been. We've been

(05:54):
real lucky, we've been blessed beyondrecognition. My first cancer was nineteen eighty
seven. Um, what what Iknow? There's seems like there's hundreds of
different types of what exactly a typeof cancer that was Hodgkins disease zach um.
In two day's world. Because ofresearch, it's ninety five percent curable

(06:14):
disease um. But as my doctortold me, says, you're in the
five percent. That didn't help youvery much, you know. But sure
enough, after nine chemotherapy treatments anda month worth of everyday radiation, uh,
five years later, they ruled mecured. I've had another no expectation,

(06:35):
no results of that coming back atall, right, and you don't
look any worse where for it?No, no, no, you know,
I again with I was, Iwas bad. I am now.
I'm not saying or anything. I'mjust saying. You know. One of
the funniest stories our son, ourson Adam, my first wife Mary Jane
and uh and and I had ason, Adam, and who Mary Jane's

(07:00):
been very involved in cattle burns outthrough the years too. Everybody said,
hey, go get a wig,Go get a wig, go get a
wig. So finally one day somebodytaught me in to go and get a
wig. So I went down you'llremember Carlos the barber, Yes, yeah,
yes, And so I went downhere and he got one on me
and put it on. I cameby the house the show Mary Jane,

(07:24):
and the Adam was in his diaperchange. He's changed his diaper and he
hadn't said much to this point intime. He just died laughing. I
took that son of a gun office. I never put it back on again,
never put it back on again.Oh my gosh. That was a
good That was a good. Part. That is too much. And you
know you talk about the chemo andthat, and you brought this up.

(07:48):
It's something that you can't handle byyourself. You need the support. And
you mentioned that earlier about the supportof family and friends too. You know,
let's we'll go ahead call you.You're in thought. I as I
think about it in my journey anda lot of the people I talk to

(08:09):
UM caregivers in a whole lot worseposition than the patient. Patient's got one
thing focused on get rid of thedamn cancer. The caregiver is what information
do I give them? How doI hand them? Do I treat them
like a baby? Do I treatthem like a man? Do I tell
them to get up off their assand go do something? Or do I

(08:30):
do it for them and all thosesorts of things, and so you know,
it's a team effort, and it'sa team effort with friends, and
so I think it's I always thinkit's important, not in a not in
a way to be bring things onto you, but I think people out
there, who generally are good friendsand love you want to know what they

(08:52):
can do to help and uh anddo things you want to do it exactly
this as cancer I got. Iknow they wanted to do I was on
a feeding tube and they want todo a meal train. And so like,
what do you when you're on afeeding tube? You don't need much,
you know, but Janna needed somethingto laugh at. You can eat

(09:15):
so much McDonald's. And the hardestthing is to say, okay, well
let's do a meal train. Andthen so the next thing is, well
what do you want? Well yougo, well, I don't care,
but yet you've got to do itand those sort of things. But they're
doing it because they love you andthey want you. They want to help.
Hey, let's talk a little bitabout American Catcer Society. They are

(09:35):
available form to talk to, suggestionsand things like that. So if you
need help support the support. Isthere many things they do. That's one
of the many things they do,and they're obviously available. Well, Zack.
Another reason that we invited How besidesbeing a long time friend, yes
you know here recently, How hasbecome a support person to me and a

(09:58):
mentor and give me a lot ofhelp and information because something that a lot
of people don't know, very fewpeople know as a matter of fact,
Zach, you're aware, and ofcourse my family and very close friends.
But I can't get to everybody,and you know that, how you can't
call everybody but I for the lastyear and a half have been under treatment

(10:18):
for liver cancer. Right. I'vehad a couple of targeted treatments that did
not produce the results that they want. So currently I'm undergoing immunotherapy, which
you yourself have been created. Yeah, tell us what that is. Well,
when I got this long story short, I've also had prostate cancer back

(10:39):
in the early two thousands. Removemy prostate and everything's fine from that.
So there's two cancer solved. Hademergency quadruple bypass in two eleven, went
in and had a hardcat and boom, they took me to them. We
don't know whether you're good luck orwhat it is. I don't know what

(11:01):
it is. Hey, it mustbe good lucky stilled his bald head.
And during all this time, mylovely wife Janna has certainly taken care of
me and and been through those journeyswith me. We met through the American
Cancer Society, which was really acool deal. And and so she's taking
that step every way. And thenin October of nineteen UM, I started

(11:28):
having some stomach issues, uh,some throwing up, some you know,
not being able to keep anything down. Finally thought it was a gallbladder.
I thought it was this. Finallywent and did a colonoscopy as a regular
scot colonoscopy, Uh, went anddid an iged and found out that I
had stage four a cute gastric cancer. UM. At that point in time,

(11:54):
they gave me about eight months tolive, and so the treatment was
to it was too big to tryto cut out at that time. It
was down the lower part of mystomach, and and so we decided to
start chemotherapy. And I did twoyears of chemotherapy every two weeks. Here

(12:16):
and wake up Texans Ecology fabulous place, fabulous doctors, fabulous infusion nurses fabulous
just I can't say too much moreabout them. And after about two years,
came up with some constipation issues andthey found out it spread to my

(12:37):
colon. So through the grace ofgood doctors, good medicine, and the
Good Lord, they were able tocut out that part of the colon and
then I went on a year's worthof immunotherapy and so and now they have
switched it back to chemotherapy. Soyesterday I got my seventy seven seventy second

(13:03):
treatment. Wow. So that's that'sto go to say, guys, we
gave you eight months to live.Yeah, that's been three and almost four
years. And that's one of theincredible things I really love about you.
How is you're not going to letcancer boop your ass. We're not.
We're not. But I'm in theimmunotherapy treatment right now. I've already had
just one treatment and I know thatit can go for a while and the

(13:26):
objective, the goal is to shrinkthese tumors that I have on my liver
and when that occurs, and they'revery optimistic. They've had very good success
with this kind of immunotherapy with thistype of cancer. My doctors are very
optimistic and so that makes me feelgood. Sure, So when I get
to that point, then um,liver transplant will be in my future.

(13:50):
So that's what my wife and Iand my family are dealing with right now.
And I just want to say thankyou for jumping in there and becoming
a sport person for me. Well, you know, it's something I've done
for years. I've got a listof people I talked to every couple of
months, try to and see howthey do, and you're on the top
of the list. Your prayers,our prayers are with you every day,

(14:13):
as I know your listeners are,and well, you know, I just
want to the listeners, our podcastlisteners, in our Zach and Jim radio
family to know that I feel goodright now and I'm gonna be positive as
I can and with your helping,with other people's help, My wife,
Melanie is and my family are justa great support. And we're starting on

(14:35):
this journey and I don't know whereit's gonna go, but we're gonna We're
gonna go as hard as we can. Well give up, I want to
interject, you know, put thisright up front, Jim, for you.
I know you and I are thesame blood type. You don't want
my kidney's our deliver either. OneI'm just passing on that has been brought

(14:58):
up by more people than you canbus pay. Imagine, Hey, you're
gonna have biliver. I don't know. I don't want nor does he want
mine. So that again, Danna, it's going to be so in a
nutshell, this is why it's soimportant. How many years have we talked
about how cancer has affected us withlike a family member. My father died

(15:18):
lung cancer. I had aunts anduncles that died of various cancers. And
you never think about it until itactually personally hits you. And that's where
I am right now. And soit's even more important to me to encourage
people to be part of giving tothe Cancer Society, American Cancer Society,
buying those tickets to Cattle Baron's Ball, having a great time, but also

(15:39):
helping a great cause. Absolutely,and the key to any cancer is early
detection. Listen to your body.Oh, I listened to your body.
I wanted to be sure that Igot this in on this podcast. Um.
A lot of people don't go tothe doctor on a regular basis,
but just simply getting a blood testcan show tumor markers or raise levels of

(16:00):
this or that that don't look right, and that leads to further investigation.
And my oncologist told me it wouldshock be She said, you would be
surprised at the number of people outthere who are walking around with the same
condition you have right now because theyhave no symptoms, have no idea,
right and then it's too late.It's too late, and so early detections.

(16:21):
The key a couple of things Janand I believe in. We have
a little quote that says, celebrateyesterday, live for today, dream for
tomorrow. We're doing all those threethings. I'd like to adopt that.
Well, I'll tell you what Iwish both of you the very best.
You know, I love each ofyou, and we will see you both

(16:42):
smiling and laughing and dancing at CattleBaron's Ball on August nineteen. Thank you
half, We'll be there. Thankyou, how much enjoyed support the American
Cancer Society. Get your tickets forCattle Baron's Ball. Jim, thanks for
sharing you bet well. That's gonnawrap up this week's PODCAS cast. Yes,
so we called it off air withJim and Zach stories and memories we

(17:03):
can share without getting into a wholelot of trouble.